Getting a good script with a good part that the producers want you to play is a dream come true for any actor. The dream only gets better when the show they’re talking about is already a hit and the part is something the producers want the actor to help create from the bottom up.
Just ask Beau Bridges, who plays Major General Hank Landry in the Stargate television series and the Stargate direct-to-DVD movies.
“It was a unique experience for me on this one because they called me up and basically said we’d like you to play the part, but we don’t have a script. We have a blank sheet of paper that says he’s a general and he takes over Stargate. That’s it,” Bridges said. “So I got to help create the character with them. I started doing a lot of research, reading about American generals from George Washington to the modern day. I kept a list of the qualities in a general that I like, wrote up a back story for our general and we cobbled together who this guy was.”
Major General Landry made his debut in Stargate: SG-1 in 2005 and the character immediately entered the lexicon of the popular science fiction series. And while original episodes of the series aren’t being made for cable anymore, the general is a big part of Stargate: The Ark of Truth movie that comes out on DVD tomorrow
“The movies pick up where the series left off and there are some really exciting things going on in plot,” Bridges said. “My job in the movie is to make it a fuller experience for the fan by helping to bring in the human elements as well. He keeps it grounded in reality.”